A question: Do you have any stories about teachers who went above and beyond to be supportive in any way?
My own 6th and 7th grade years were fucking wholesome. Quaint little Connecticut town, that I only lived in for those two years. I would say everyone was pretty friendly to everyone else, even if they weren’t specifically part of someone’s friend group. Those were years of rollerblading in the summer, dragging our sleds to the hills across the neighborhood in winter, spending afternoons after school with my best friend looking for minnows and salamanders in the stream behind her house. Or hanging out with friends on the swings at the elementary school, which shared a property line with my house. And challenging classmates to sprinting races in gym class 😼
My best friend then had a big, long term crush on one of the boys, and she and our other friends would sometimes sit around and talk about who they liked, and ask me who I liked. I wasn’t into anyone. I didn’t have my “oh, girls” lightbulb until 10th grade. But they would ask, and I felt like I had to have an answer. So in my head, I picked out a boy whose name I NEVER actually mentioned, because I didn’t want my friends to try to set up any kind of interaction. But I picked him as a placeholder because he was the first kid at school who learned how to use hair product 🤷 And I could aesthetically appreciate an expressive hairstyle. So that was basically like “bro, I don’t have a crush on you, but good job on the hair” 😂 Adult me is still appreciative of cool hairstyles (pretty gay).
I’ve also had horrible experiences in Junior High, especially with puberty and being forced to dress out in front of classmates in gym, or being bullied by the “pretty” girls.
There wasn’t very much LGBTQ+ representation in my school and community. My wife experienced the same in her community, and last Christmas she started a personal project to help students become motivated to increase test scores. I wrote about it here, but the point is she made a huge effort to be inclusive of ALL kids!
You guys definitely helped me look back and not cringe at younger me so much but all my teenage years were so hard, I was so out of place trying to fit in but knowing I couldn't, it was really hard learning so many life lessons for the first time and I think that's common for most but in the moment I felt so alone and I only really felt like myself in my late 20s. I try to focus on the good and light memories though, which are plenty as well! Thank you for answering my question and I can't wait for the graphic novel! :)
Yeah absolutely feel that from Sara, when I think back to that time now, particularly high school time (secondary school in the UK). I don’t remember a lot because it was just not a fun time for me. But I have a pretty tough memory of, the culture in schools at that time of picking on people who were supposedly your friends.
A particularly fucked up thing from that time, is the word gay would be used as an insult, if this doesn’t want to make you bang your head on the table already, this was in the early 2010s. This shit was still happening, 10 years ago. 😤😑
I remember one of my friends saying to me. “Your gay”! “You’re so gay!” He said it to another one of my friends too. And I, hurt and not knowing how to respond and what to say, said. “I’m not gay, and if anyone’s gay, he is!” Needless to say when I think back on this now I’m still ashamed that I responded in that way. Yes it was self defence but by deflecting it onto someone else, your still participating in bullying. This kind of awful shit from memory, would happen in one way or another for years, in high school. This led to me for years, having to say so regularly that I was not gay. Thinking for years I must be gay because everyone told me that I was. And repressing, and not even considering the fact that I was bi. It didn’t even occur to me, at that time. Because of toxic stuff like that reinforcing in my head that being anything other than “straight“ was a bad thing.
Talk about psychological warfare.
Anyway, all of this to say, isn’t society fucked up?
Kids were still picking up, that this sort of thing was okay to say, 10 years ago. 🤯
I’d like to think that things are better now and that this sort of homophobia isn’t acceptable anymore, we can only hope. 🙂
Sorry for the long ramble, it just reminded me when Sara said, looking back at it subjectively, we actively participated in some form of bullying. When talking about the ghosting.
Anyone else have similar experiences with this terrible childish bullying in high school?
You know, reading/watching High School and gearing up for junior high, is dredging up some long since buried memories.😂😬
As far as school goes, I went to a private school until 4th grade and was homeschooled 5th grade on.
Positives and negatives to both.
When I left the private school, everyone was still like a family. When I started homeschooling and hanging out with those people again outside of just school, suddenly everyone was talking about sex and interested in dating and the girls were fucking happy about their periods???
Yeah. I look forward to reading your book and seeing the artwork! You guys have such an interesting outlook and interesting stories. Stay safe and rest up.
Wow. Great insight on how ghosting could be seen as a form of bullying. I'd never thought of it that way. I'm glad the social scene stabilized at the start of high school.
Still have bad memories of being bullied and being called names and my ex girlfriend was a bully to me called me some nasty names even tried to choke me and tried to beat me up
When I heard Sara talk about the kind of psychological warfare that girls used in your junior high my mind immediately went to showing rabbits. I raised and competitively showed American Fuzzy Lop rabbits from 6 years old to 21 years old. Like you guys junior high experience I was victim of and witnessed other people acting like someone's friend one minute and the next minute bad talking them at rabbit shows. Note that this involved all age groups and was a huge part in my decision to quit showing rabbits. My mentor was actually very well at the mind games aspect of showing rabbits and probably wasn't the best person for me to be learning from. Rabbit shows were actually an escape for me when I was in junior high and high school despite the toxicity which got worse when I decided to show against the adults while I was still considered youth. I remember a girl calling me a long haired boy from Tennessee at a rabbit show which at the time hurt my feelings but, now I just laugh whenever I remember it.
I do think that junior school for me had it's good and bad periods.i was always called a boy and was so very confused by it all,I also got snubbed for being I would say maybe from a not so well off family so I never had the branded shoes or the cool clothes.it must be so hard for kids now trying to live up to certain expectations and trends just to fit in and be popular.
I will say I was a happy kid that's all that mattered to me,above all else .
Definitely can relate to experiences of being in high school and junior high and even to this day I still find myself being bullied on social media especially Facebook and I thought it could never happen I was wrong
Good insight on how ghosting could be seen as a form of bullying.I was unfortunately called names and some girls tried to drag me into the showers on my birthday as to them it was a so called junior high school tradition back then and even in high school I had two girls follow me around everywhere had they would be mean to me and they were even in my typing class and I would actually enter the class using the emergency exit door as that’s how much I was afraid of them .
Love the voice notes and can you post more of them .
if you need to pick a song or a sitcom to describe your Junior high experience which one you would choose?
A question: Do you have any stories about teachers who went above and beyond to be supportive in any way?
My own 6th and 7th grade years were fucking wholesome. Quaint little Connecticut town, that I only lived in for those two years. I would say everyone was pretty friendly to everyone else, even if they weren’t specifically part of someone’s friend group. Those were years of rollerblading in the summer, dragging our sleds to the hills across the neighborhood in winter, spending afternoons after school with my best friend looking for minnows and salamanders in the stream behind her house. Or hanging out with friends on the swings at the elementary school, which shared a property line with my house. And challenging classmates to sprinting races in gym class 😼
My best friend then had a big, long term crush on one of the boys, and she and our other friends would sometimes sit around and talk about who they liked, and ask me who I liked. I wasn’t into anyone. I didn’t have my “oh, girls” lightbulb until 10th grade. But they would ask, and I felt like I had to have an answer. So in my head, I picked out a boy whose name I NEVER actually mentioned, because I didn’t want my friends to try to set up any kind of interaction. But I picked him as a placeholder because he was the first kid at school who learned how to use hair product 🤷 And I could aesthetically appreciate an expressive hairstyle. So that was basically like “bro, I don’t have a crush on you, but good job on the hair” 😂 Adult me is still appreciative of cool hairstyles (pretty gay).
I’ve also had horrible experiences in Junior High, especially with puberty and being forced to dress out in front of classmates in gym, or being bullied by the “pretty” girls.
There wasn’t very much LGBTQ+ representation in my school and community. My wife experienced the same in her community, and last Christmas she started a personal project to help students become motivated to increase test scores. I wrote about it here, but the point is she made a huge effort to be inclusive of ALL kids!
https://substack.com/profile/74107346-mona-t/note/c-15377745
You guys definitely helped me look back and not cringe at younger me so much but all my teenage years were so hard, I was so out of place trying to fit in but knowing I couldn't, it was really hard learning so many life lessons for the first time and I think that's common for most but in the moment I felt so alone and I only really felt like myself in my late 20s. I try to focus on the good and light memories though, which are plenty as well! Thank you for answering my question and I can't wait for the graphic novel! :)
Thank you for asking my question!! You guys are awesome! Thanks for making my day!!
Yeah absolutely feel that from Sara, when I think back to that time now, particularly high school time (secondary school in the UK). I don’t remember a lot because it was just not a fun time for me. But I have a pretty tough memory of, the culture in schools at that time of picking on people who were supposedly your friends.
A particularly fucked up thing from that time, is the word gay would be used as an insult, if this doesn’t want to make you bang your head on the table already, this was in the early 2010s. This shit was still happening, 10 years ago. 😤😑
I remember one of my friends saying to me. “Your gay”! “You’re so gay!” He said it to another one of my friends too. And I, hurt and not knowing how to respond and what to say, said. “I’m not gay, and if anyone’s gay, he is!” Needless to say when I think back on this now I’m still ashamed that I responded in that way. Yes it was self defence but by deflecting it onto someone else, your still participating in bullying. This kind of awful shit from memory, would happen in one way or another for years, in high school. This led to me for years, having to say so regularly that I was not gay. Thinking for years I must be gay because everyone told me that I was. And repressing, and not even considering the fact that I was bi. It didn’t even occur to me, at that time. Because of toxic stuff like that reinforcing in my head that being anything other than “straight“ was a bad thing.
Talk about psychological warfare.
Anyway, all of this to say, isn’t society fucked up?
Kids were still picking up, that this sort of thing was okay to say, 10 years ago. 🤯
I’d like to think that things are better now and that this sort of homophobia isn’t acceptable anymore, we can only hope. 🙂
Sorry for the long ramble, it just reminded me when Sara said, looking back at it subjectively, we actively participated in some form of bullying. When talking about the ghosting.
Anyone else have similar experiences with this terrible childish bullying in high school?
You know, reading/watching High School and gearing up for junior high, is dredging up some long since buried memories.😂😬
As far as school goes, I went to a private school until 4th grade and was homeschooled 5th grade on.
Positives and negatives to both.
When I left the private school, everyone was still like a family. When I started homeschooling and hanging out with those people again outside of just school, suddenly everyone was talking about sex and interested in dating and the girls were fucking happy about their periods???
Yeah. I look forward to reading your book and seeing the artwork! You guys have such an interesting outlook and interesting stories. Stay safe and rest up.
Love from Chicago🫶
Wow. Great insight on how ghosting could be seen as a form of bullying. I'd never thought of it that way. I'm glad the social scene stabilized at the start of high school.
With all the bullying that occurred in school, I just hope everyone turned out okay and not traumatised, because kids can be so cruel.
Still have bad memories of being bullied and being called names and my ex girlfriend was a bully to me called me some nasty names even tried to choke me and tried to beat me up
When I heard Sara talk about the kind of psychological warfare that girls used in your junior high my mind immediately went to showing rabbits. I raised and competitively showed American Fuzzy Lop rabbits from 6 years old to 21 years old. Like you guys junior high experience I was victim of and witnessed other people acting like someone's friend one minute and the next minute bad talking them at rabbit shows. Note that this involved all age groups and was a huge part in my decision to quit showing rabbits. My mentor was actually very well at the mind games aspect of showing rabbits and probably wasn't the best person for me to be learning from. Rabbit shows were actually an escape for me when I was in junior high and high school despite the toxicity which got worse when I decided to show against the adults while I was still considered youth. I remember a girl calling me a long haired boy from Tennessee at a rabbit show which at the time hurt my feelings but, now I just laugh whenever I remember it.
I do think that junior school for me had it's good and bad periods.i was always called a boy and was so very confused by it all,I also got snubbed for being I would say maybe from a not so well off family so I never had the branded shoes or the cool clothes.it must be so hard for kids now trying to live up to certain expectations and trends just to fit in and be popular.
I will say I was a happy kid that's all that mattered to me,above all else .
Definitely can relate to experiences of being in high school and junior high and even to this day I still find myself being bullied on social media especially Facebook and I thought it could never happen I was wrong
Good insight on how ghosting could be seen as a form of bullying.I was unfortunately called names and some girls tried to drag me into the showers on my birthday as to them it was a so called junior high school tradition back then and even in high school I had two girls follow me around everywhere had they would be mean to me and they were even in my typing class and I would actually enter the class using the emergency exit door as that’s how much I was afraid of them .
Looking forward to buying the book junior high school and these voice notes are awesome and sending my love from the sunny and beautiful okanagan